Effect of Microwave Treatment on Hydrophilicity and Bonding Strength Properties of Woods

Abstract

It was found that Microwave (MW) assisted wood preservative (WP) treatments affects further lowering swelling and water absortion values for selected hardwoods and softwood species in this study. It is clear that the post MW treated woods effects further reaction or bonding to hydroxyl group (–C-OH) of cell wall constituents to create further water repellent (hyrophobic) surfaces with WP applications. However, the water absorptiveness was found to be lowered extensively on all WP treated samples. The further lowering water absortiveness values calculated for all post MW treated samples. The calculated values have indicated approximately further reducing of 14.9% for Eucalyptus, 6.9% for Poplar, 6.8% Chestnut samples, 7.9% for Cedrus and 18.1% for Pine samples respectively. It has also found that MW treated samples are a clear evidence on increasing bonding strength for all post MW treated wood species. The MW treatments increased bonding strengths of wood in the range of 6.5-20.2% forhardwoods and 5.5-10.4% for softwood species.